Dystopia is a is a total conversion of the Source Engine that places players into tense combat situations in a high-tech world spanned by computer networks. As Punks or Corporate Mercenaries, players will fight through the physical world to gain access, via Jack-in Points, to cyberspace. Cyberspace is a three dimensonal representation of the world's network. In cyberspace, players must fight off enemy hackers and launch programs to gain control of critical systems and to affect the physical world. Gameplay progresses through inter-linked physical and cyberspace objectives, and players must work together to achieve victory for their team. Players will be immersed in action-packed battles, whether as a heavily augmented combat mercenary armed to the teeth with the latest in firepower and cybernetic implants, or as a twitch-reflex cyberdecker racing to infiltrate a cyberspace node.

In this month's update, we take a look at the interviews created by the great folks over at Noesis Interactive with ModDB. Also included are details about recent competitive activity, including videos and articles. Finally, some information about a new open position at Team Dystopia.

May was hot and June is hotter, much like the work we're doing. Right now, the team is hard at work on some spectacular stuff that we will be showing off in the coming months. However, we wanted to take some time and release a patch for you guys. The patch, while small, addresses some of the issues that have come into light -- the spider mine problem being one of them. We released the update earlier in the week, and we're hoping that we get some good feedback from players about some of the changes.

We're technically naming this update "1.23" and changing our update scheme to x.xx, or major, minor, very minor. So CU1, and CU2 would now be known as 1.21, and 1.22.

"1.23 wrote: - Medium Katana now does 75 damage, down from 90.
- Fixed a bug causing Spider grenades to always go in the same direction, instead of the direction the player threw the grenade.
- Respawning during a fast spawn period now always gives full energy (even after suicide)
- Energy is now always properly reset for players when a round resets.
- The variable r_drawviewmodel is no longer a cheat.
- The player is now allowed to reload after Smartlock Pistols' tracers have been fired.
- Ledge grabbing does not occur unless the player is looking within 45 degrees of the ledge front.
- Fixed an issue that prevented players from using the "Invert Y-Axis for Fly-by-Wire rockets" setting.
- Players can no longer respawn with a changed loadout on the spawn pad after their weapon has been fired.
- Players must now wait 20 seconds to switch back to a team they just switched away from (preventing exploits).
- Fixed an exploit with stealth.
- Fixed an exploit with the loadout menu.
- Fixed a bug that could permanently remove ICEWalls.
- Toggling Sound Suppressors while firing the Tesla Rifle primary now works correctly.
- Fixed XFire integration issues. Icon status, global rank, weapons and implants now show properly.
- Players can now no longer use the Katana to block while ledge grabbing.
- Added an angle for the dys_spidershooter entity in Hammer.

A while ago, I had the fortune of working with Noesis Interactive and ModDB to conduct a series of interviews which answer questions about Dystopia, it's history and production as well as give some helpful advice to other modders and mod players. The interview, split into 3 parts, was posted on ModDB throughout the last few weeks. Now you can find them in our media gallery and enjoy them at any time!

Also this week, we'd like to take some time to recognize everyone from the competitive Dystopia scene and all members and participants of the Dystopia Global League. They have done a fantastic job of producing some top notch plays of the week, in which demos from the last week's matches or scrims are put out in the public for everyone to gawk at and only a few choice players to gloat with. Be sure to read over all of the amazing week write-ups and the second season-end write-up over at the Dystopia Global League articles section.

Last but not least, I would just like to announce a new position that has opened up in our team. Jimmy "Laguana" Thompson will be moving to bigger and brighter things, namely programming, and we will need a new Lead Playtester in his stead. Expect a lot of work to be had, for we plan to get back to testing some awesome stuff pretty soon and eventually bringing on more testers. However, because of the necessity of this position, we are only looking for candidates that send their cover letters, resumes or any other pertinent information within 48 hours of this news post. That means, if it's not in after 48 hours, it won't be looked at. If interested, swing over to ModDB's help wanted forums and take a look at the posting!

EDIT: The position posted above is now closed. Thank you to all who have applied! If you have experience in QA and would like to interview for a tester position (which will be available in the next coming weeks) please contact me via the same email.